Hard work, hope

For all of its bumps and curves, the road to redemption carries the promise of better days ahead as students, teachers move forward

STOCKTON - In Roosevelt Elementary's darkened multipurpose room late Thursday afternoon, eighth-grade boys donned jackets and ties, girls wore formal dresses and all of them marched to the muted strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" as parents and other relatives watched and wondered where the years had gone.

STOCKTON - In Roosevelt Elementary's darkened multipurpose room late Thursday afternoon, eighth-grade boys donned jackets and ties, girls wore formal dresses and all of them marched to the muted strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" as parents and other relatives watched and wondered where the years had gone.

The occasion was Roosevelt's eighth-grade promotion ceremony, a rite of passage for the 55 eighth-graders who will be starting high school two months from now. Five of the departing students were selected to speak at Thursday's observance.

Kenya Hernandez told the audience, "Roosevelt isn't the graffiti on the walls. It's about us, the students of Roosevelt." Keeva Wright said it wasn't until this year, her only year at Roosevelt, that she learned to value school. And the final speaker, Michael Johnson, said Roosevelt has been "on a road to redemption."

"Many of us have detoured off of this road to success," he said, "but with the help of our teachers we're staying steadfast in our train of thought. ... There comes a time in life where we all should take a stand, stand together hand in hand, become one, take a bow, and that time to take is right now."

Roosevelt and six other K-8 schools in Stockton Unified were identified by the state a year ago as "persistently low-performing." That designation put the seven schools - the others are Fremont, Harrison, Henry, Nightingale, Pittman and Taylor - on notice that the time had come to start speeding down that road to redemption. How well those schools navigate the journey will go a long way toward determining Stockton's future.

Will the seven schools' large numbers of English-learner students receive the education they need to blend successfully into their families' adopted homeland? Will the schools' many students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds escape generational poverty? Will Stockton move down a new road to prosperity? Or will its historic problems continue to bump up against the dead ends of crime, drugs, low-wage jobs and unemployment?

Last July, The Record began chronicling the first year of one persistently low-performing school's lengthy drive to improve. Roosevelt, in southeast Stockton, was selected for several reasons:

» Three-fourths of Roosevelt's 500 students are Latino. Half are classified as English learners. Four of every five qualify for free breakfast and lunch, an indicator of poverty.

» The school's principal, Renee Sweeden, said she would be open and welcoming to the regular intrusions of reporters and photographers, and she fully lived up to her promise over the course of the 10-month school year.

Though the all-important API test results will not be available for several months, Sweeden ended the year with a largely positive outlook.

She said she saw growth in the students and her staff and is pleased that unlike the previous two years, her school will have a badly needed counselor in 2011-12.

Asked to list highlights from this year, Sweeden first mentioned the newfound seriousness she witnessed in her students when they took this year's standardized tests. The students, she said, clearly took to heart the message given them by their teachers: like it or not, testing matters.

"You could walk through the classrooms and see these kids intently taking that test," Sweeden said. "It was really neat to see."

There were other highlights: a field trip to Edison High School for eighth-graders organized by teacher Brandy De Alba, increased parent involvement exemplified by a successful winter fundraising carnival and a recent trip to Washington, D.C., where the voices of De Alba and Kenya were heard by a national panel of educators and policymakers.

But the road to redemption also had its share of potholes: student discipline issues that resulted in several expulsions, as well as ongoing career uncertainty among the portion of the teaching staff that lacks the seniority to be insulated from budget-related layoffs.

"When you keep losing staff ... it's rough," said Sweeden, who will lose close to half of her 20 teachers for the second consecutive year. "It doesn't make things impossible, it doesn't make us want to quit, we're still fighting the good fight, but it makes it about 20 times harder than it could be."

Still, there is reason for optimism looking forward. Sweeden learned last week that the layoffs of two teachers she feared she would lose had been rescinded.

There also is the hope for a potentially large School Improvement Grant from the federal government. The funds would pay for more instructional hours and for additional time for teachers to collaborate. Sweeden knows, however, that there is no guarantee the school district will win the grant funding. Stockton Unified came up short in its bid for the same funding a year ago.

Whether or not Roosevelt gets the funding, Sweeden said she has a vision for building on what has been established since she arrived at the school two years ago.

There are plans to better train staff to deal positively with their students' behavioral challenges. Sweeden wants to establish a variety of student clubs. And she hopes to develop a strong association with the University of the Pacific through her growing relationship with Benerd School of Education Dean Lynn Beck.

For Roosevelt, as well as the other struggling schools in Stockton Unified, the reform efforts - if successful - hold the promise of positive long-term change for the city.

For Sweeden and the staffs at Roosevelt and the other schools working to improve, the first step toward redemption is a better quality of life for the students they see every day.

"I would like the muddled-up stuff that they deal with - this is a dream - to just be gone so that they can focus on learning," Sweeden said. "I would just like to see this direct path to learning and to being able to connect with our students the best way possible - to look at each student individually and say, 'What do you need? We will provide it.' "